The Special Purpose Forces are in actuality made of a number of independent regular and irregular units reporting to several control organs. The president is the top man of the pyramid. The Korean Workers Party Central Committee, the Central People's Committee and the Political Security Dept. are the second-tier organs.
The Korean Workers Party (KWP) runs cadre (leaders) training schools. The South Korean Liaison Bureau of KWP in Pyongyang has the overall responsibility for guerrilla and espionage activities in S Korea. The Bureau is dominated by th e Communists from S Korea. Many of these are leaders of the People's Committees dating back to 1945.
The Central People's Committee oversees the National Defense Commission, which runs the armed forces, including special units, regular (non KWP) guerrillas and intelligence agents. The Military Commission of KWP coordinates the Special Purpose Forces activities with the National Defense Commission.
Nov. 1945 - The first cadre training school in N Korea, Pyongyang Institute, was established. Kim Chaek, a Kim Il Sung guerrilla, headed the school. Assisting Kim was Ki Sok Bok, a Soviet Korean graduated from Leningrad State University. The Pyongyang Institute trained military and security officers.
Feb. 1946 - The Provisional People's Committee of N Korea established the Security Bureau headed by Choe Yong Gun, a prominent partisan from Manchuria. This bureau became the Interior Ministry with 12,000 police, 3,000 security police (equivalent to FBI) , 5,000 secret police and other espionage specialists. The secret police was headed by Pang Hak Se, a Soviet-Korean.
Sept. 1947 - The S Korean communists set up their own cadre school, Kang Dong Political Institute, in Kandong, Pyongyang Namdo. Park Hyon Yong, boss of the S Korean Communist Party, was in charge. So Chol, a Kim Il Sung guerrilla, was in charge of military training. The students and instructors were mostly from S Korea. About 60% of them crossed the border expressly for the training. Others were from the refugees from South who fled to North. The graduates would slip into south either by walking through the border or by boats. The US CIC had learned that many S Korean coastal patrols took bribes and looked the other way.
Sept. 1949 - Some 630 graduates of Kang Dong were sent south in a major guerrilla offensive and the Institute was closed. Kang Dong had graduated over 3,000 guerrillas during its short life. Famous among its graduates were: Yi Hyong Sang - guerrilla chief of the Mt. Chiri region and Yi Tal San - guerrilla chief of the Cheju Island.
Oct. 1949 - A new guerrilla school, the Hoeryong Cadres School, was created under O Chin U - a Kim Il Sung guerrilla. Under O's direction, the main emphasis of training became guerrilla warfare and less on political ideology.
By June of 1950, there were about 5,000 agents led by 1,700 cadres in S Korea. There were two well trained guerrilla regiments - the 766th and the 945th under direct control of NKPA. The 766th regiment was made of three battalions. The first battalion led the NKPA 5th Infantry cross the 38th on June 25, 1950. The second battalion landed at Kangnung and Samchok and dispersed into the hills. The third battalion of about 600 men was to land near Pusan and seize the port; but their ship was sunk by S Korean warships and all aboard drowned.
The 766th Regiment regrouped into combat formations and took Samchok and Ulchin and then dispersed again into small groups in civilian cloths. They infiltrated behind the front lines for the battle of Pohang. There they suffered heavy casualties and the survivors were absorbed into the 12th Infantry Division. Thus ended the 766th Special Purpose Regiment. The 945th Regiment was disbanded and incorporated into the 24th Brigade in August 1950.
1950 - During the first year of the Korean War, N Korean guerrilla training came to a halt. All guerrillas in S Korea had surfaced in support of the invading People's Army and thus exposed.
August 31, 1951 - The Kumgang Political Institute was established in Hwanghaedo for the purpose of training and directing guerrillas in S Korea. Kumgang was entirely staffed by S Koreans, from its director Kim Ung Bin down to its cooks. It had 1,5 00 students. Kim Ung Bin reported to Yi Sung Yup, a veteran guerrilla leader from S Korea, who reported to Park Hyong Yong, chief of the S Korean Workers Party.
Although many N Koreans fled south for ideological reasons, some were forced to flee and others were duped into coming to the paradise. Those who came south unwillingly welcomed any means of returning home. In those days, the only was home was to join t he American spy operations.
Photo: 8th Army G-3 Miscellaneous Group Baker Section - Spitfire team members in 1951 (Ed Evanhoe Collection)"
However, the US intelligence officers were willing to check out the Big Boy units. In June of 1951, a team made of British, American and Korean agents, code named Spitfire, was dropped near Wonsan. Its primary function was to establish partisan bases a nd if possible contact the Big Boy units. The mission failed with death or capture of the most team members and the N Koreans were handed valuable information on the 8th Army G-3 operations.
The Spitfire taught the American commanders one important lessen - Use of non-Korean agents on the ground is impractical for a number of reasons:
The CIA and the 8th Army G-2 sent agents to Manchuria and indeed found Gen. Dean but soon after he was moved back to Korea. In June of 1951, an American agent (a N Korean police captain) radioed that Dean was in a POW camp near Kang Dong (famous for the N Korean spy school, Kang Dong Political Institute).
The CIA (cover name - Joint Advisory Commission, Korea) formulated a daring rescue mission. The Korean agent was "successful" in recruiting the POW camp commandant for US citizenship and $50,000. A second agent was sent into the area to verify this and his reports seemed to indicate no foul play and so the CIA went ahead with the rescue plan, code named Mustang II.
The plan called for the Leopard Mustang 11 Partisan Group to be air-dropped near the camp and occupy the camp with the help of its commandant. American helicopters would then scoop in and evacuate the general. On Sept. 17, 1951, the key commanders of Mustang II were captured or killed when their CIA B-26 spy plane was shot down on a recon flight over the camp area. The N Koreans were expecting them. The CIA "agent" and the camp commandant were working for the N Korean counterintelligence.
Photo: A CIA B-26 spy plane used for agent infiltration (Ed Evanhoe collection)
One of the agents threw a grenade into the plane as he jumped. The grenade exploded and the plane went down killing several occupants. The few survivors were captured.
Feb. 1952 - Unsuspecting Yi's coup plan, Kim Il Sung set up another guerrilla school in Namyongback under Yi's supervision. By November 1952, Yi had over 4,000 guerrillas positioned to strike Pyongyang. Yi's coup plan included a new cabinet with Park Hyong Yong (premier), Chu Yong Ha and Chang Si U (vice premiers), Kim Ung Bin (Defense Minister) and himself as the chief of a new Korean Communist Party.
Jan 1953 - A coup was attempted but fizzled out. All participants were arrested by Kim Il Sung loyalists.
July 20, 1953 - The coup leaders were indicted on three counts; (1) espionage activities for US, (2) slaughter of patriots in S Korea, and (3) attempted coup. This more or less put an end to Kim Il Sung's guerrilla and espionage actions in S Korea.
1961 - The Soviet-Koreans were purged and Yi Hyo Sun, the elder brother of Yi Che Sun (a Kapsan partisan killed in the Hyesangjin Incident), took over the Bureau. Yi was given the task of rebuilding guerrilla bases in S Korea. During 1961 to 1967, Yi man aged to inject several small units into S Korea.
July 1967 - Kim Il Sung purged non-military partisans including Park Kum Chol and Yi Hyo Sun (both from my home town Kapsan). These men were partisans who did underground political agitation, but not actual combats. Military partisans replaced the "political" partisans in key organs including the Liaison Bureau.
Yi was relieved of his position for failing to be more aggressive and Park (one of two Kapsan spy masters for Kim Il Sung, the other being Park Tal - a distant relative of mine) was fired for being against military adventures in S Korea.
Yi was replaced by Ho Pong Hak, a combat partisan. Ho joined An Kil's partisan division in 1933 and followed Kim Il Sung to the 88th Soviet Guerrilla Brigade in 1941. Ho orchestrated a series of daring raids in S Korea.
The men were issued S Korean uniforms at the DMZ and crossed the border guarded by the US 2nd Infantry Division undetected. Next day, they boldly camped a few miles from the 2nd Division HQ. They were accidentally discovered by a woodcutter and who was unbelievable let go - a fatal mistake for the men. S Korean security forces were alerted and the unit was stopped not far from Park's house. 28 N Koreans were killed, 2 escaped and one was captured alive.
The ship carried workers and equipment for a factory being built by N Korea for Burma. She unloaded the cargo on Sept. 17,1983. Her captain asked for and was granted time to repair some mechanical problems. The assassination squad left the ship dressed as crewmen on Sept. 22. They stayed at a safe house in Rangoon and received the final order and the explosives from a resident agent.
On Oct. 7, the squad planted the explosives and two days later, a remote control was used to trigger the explosion. Gen. Chun survived but many of his cabinet members were killed. Zin Mo and Kang Min Chul were captured alive but Kim Chi O was killed.
Kim was born on Jan. 27, 1962 in Kaesong, North Korea. Her father was a foreign service officer in the N Korean Government.
When she was one year old, her father was assigned to Cuba and her family moved to Havana, Cuba. After five years in Cuba, Kim's family moved to Pyongyang. After finishing elementary, junior and high schools in Pyongyang, she entered Kim Il Sung University at age seventeen. She could not keep up with the school work and got herself transferred to Pyongyang Foreign Language College to major in Japanese.
At age 18, she was chosen to become an agent. She was given a new name - Kim Ok Wha. Her training took place at Kumsung Military Institute. Her training included martial arts, firearms, political indoctrination and foreign culture. Her training lasted for three years.
Her first mission was with an old agent. They traveled all over Europe and Asia posing as Japanese father and daughter. They used N Korean diplomatic passports in communist countries and forged Japanese passports in non-Communist countries. This mission was more or less a training exercise - an old agent breaking in a new agent without any specific task. Her second mission was to Maco with a female agent. Kim was not told her mission except to learn the ways of capitalists in Maco and the Chinese language.
Her third and the last mission was to blow up a S Korean airliner, KAL 858 originating at Baghdad on Nov. 28, 1988. Kim was paired with her "father", Kim Sung Il, again as a Japanese father-daughter couple. A bomb was placed inside a Japanese-made radio. They were given a pack of Marlboro cigarettes which contained cyanide hidden in a cigarettes. They were instructed to commit suicide in case of arrest. They were given $10,000. Kim Sung Il retired in 1984 from Foreign Intelligence, but he was recalled in 1984. Kim Sung Il was suffering from cancer and not fit for the bomb mission - at least, he was not happy with the mission control.
The first mishap happened at the Budapest airport. They were to be met by a N Korean embassy car, but no one at the embassy had been informed of their arrival. The embassy driver was new to Budapest and they had spend hours looking for the safe house. They were driven to Vienna, Austria, by an agent stationed in Budapest. A local agent dropped airline tickets in a trash can for them in a public park. Their next destination was Belgrade, Yugoslavia, from there to their final destination, Baghdad.
On Nov. 28, 1988, they arrived at the Baghdad airport and found KAL 858 being refueled. They met two local agents who gave them the bomb-radio in a brief. The "father" carried the brief case. She set the bomb timer in a rest-room at the airport. They boarded the Korean plane and placed the bomb in the overhead compartment. They got off the plane at Abu Dhabi and boarded a plane to Bahrain. In Bahrain their luck ran out - they were unable to leave Bahrain due to heavy air traffic to Rome. By now all security people in the region were looking for the KAL 858 bombers. They were arrested at the Bahrain airport. Both agents took the cyanide, but she survived.
In Songnam, the agents set up a radio transmitter on a hill overlooking a high-rise apartment complex. They hid the radio transmitter, an additive table and a cipher note near a tomb on a hill in Pundang in Songnam. The agents were spotted by S Korean po lice and one named Kim was captured alive. The police confiscated a pistol, two poisoned needles and a false S Korean identification card. The captured agent belonged to the Social and Culture Department of the N Korean Workers Party.
Kim arrived in Puyo Sept. 21, and stayed around a Buddhist temple for about a month. He arrived in Nonsan and was on his way to the Buddhist temple, Chongkak-sa, when he was spotted by investigators who had chased Kim and his fellow agent who managed to escape. During the gunfight with Army troops and police officers, Kim was shot in the leg and was taken to Seoul after medical treatment. A police officer was killed and two others wounded.
The second method of infiltration is via sea. The N Korean Navy (NKN) maintains a large fleet of submarines, mini-subs, gunboats and merchant ships. The primary mission of NKA is infiltration of special purpose units behind the front lines.
NKN operates at least 30 Whiskey and 10 Romeo-class submarines. These subs are of old Soviet design but the N Koreans have added modern equipment and armament making them potent threats to the continental USA.
Agents are ported in high-speed boats close to an island, and loaded onto rubber boats or submersibles (mini-subs). The mini-subs are usually abandoned or hidden for escape or avoidance. S Korean scouts then retrieved the agents and escort them to the tar get area.
N Korea operates at least 80 ocean going vessels capable of reaching US. Merchant ships and fishing ships are also used for agent infiltration and signal collection.
The third injection method is by air. The Korean People's Air Force (KPAF) has 300+ An-2 transports and about 90 US-made helicopters. The latter are often disguised as S Korean military helicopters
and perform reconnaissance over the enemy territory.
An-2 transports can reach the southernmost airfield of Cheju and they are ideal for quick injections of up to company-size commando units for seizure or destruction of US nuclear, biochemical and missile systems.
N Korea relied on whatever scrap of intelligence they could steal from the Russian and Chinese intelligence services. China's spy organization is called the Social Affairs Organ at 15 Bow String Alley in Beijing. The Ministry of Public Affairs is a section of the Social Affair which deals with internal security including Hong Kong, Macao and Formosa. Foreign intelligence is carried on by the International Liaison Dept. and the United Front Workers Dept. - both reporting to the Organ.
The British Foreign Service and Intelligence Service were compromised by KGB moles long before the Korean war. The CIA unwittingly shared military and strategic information on Korea with the KGB agents freely. Fortunately, the CIA intelligence on Korea w as wrong more often than right, and therefore, it probably confused more often than elucidating the communists
The CIA assumes that the KGB kept Kim Il Sung and Mao Zedong well informed of the US plans. However, there are those who doubt if the Soviets shared their intelligence with China or N Korea. The Soviets may have considered their British agents unreliable, or they may have decided to withhold the information.
It is clear that Stalin was happy to bleed US at the expense of N Korea and China. The war increased China's debt to the USSR and delayed China's economic and military expansion. The Korean War was about the best thing Stalin could hope for. Indeed, re cent archives show that Stalin ordered his UN representatives to stay away during the UN discussions on the Korean issue on June 28, 1950.
Some of the Russian spies who may have passed US war secrets are:
Tom Driberg: - a British Parliament Member. He worked as a news reporter in 1950 and spied on US covert operations in N Korea. A few years later, he escaped to Moscow.
Guy Burgess: - a British Foreign Service employee, passed confidential information on Far East to KGB. Burgess was a backup for Kim Philby. He was a gay and an alcoholic. The US and British authorities were concerned about his behavior, but not his political loyalty.
George Blake: - chief of British Intelligence (MI6) in S Korea, "captured" by the N Korean Army on June 28, 1950 in Seoul. Blake was uncovered as a Russian spy and arrested in 1961. Blake escaped to the USSR in 1966
.
Kim Philby: a British Intelligence liaison officer with the CIA. He was stationed in Washington, DC in 1950. A few years, Philby escaped to Moscow Philby was suspected of leaking intelligence information during WW
2 and was on the FBI list of low-priority surveillance. Unbelievably, Philby was allowed access to details of the American war plans in Korea.
Donald Maclean: - worked for the British Foreign Office in London and read sensitive documents sent by the British diplomats. He was an alcoholic, homosexual working for the KGB.
N Korea operates some 30 guerrilla schools for foreigners within N Korea and some 50 foreign countries in Asia, Middle East, Africa and South America. Training classes last about 12 months and cover urban and rural guerrilla tactics, counterinsurgency, security, kidnapping, assassination, psychological warfare, communication, explosives and survival methods.
Foreign action teams range in size from three to several hundred N Korean agents. Some of these men provide instructions on conventional war tactics, on armor warfare and jet plane piloting. Military training normally goes with transfers of weapons made in N Korea. N Koreans make guided missiles (Silkworm and Rodong-class), tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery, mounted rocket launchers, communication gears, fighter planes, naval vessels, biochemical weapons and so on.
Merchant marine and submarines are used for foreign intelligence, including electronic intelligence in the Gulf of California. For example, in January 1983, four N Korean
shrimp trawlers entered
the Gulf of California. One of the ships, flying a Mexican flag, proceeded north towards St. Jorge Bay where she remained at anchor for several days. She was seized by the Mexicans on 21 January for "fishing illegally the gulf". However, US CIA claimed t
hat she was being used to conduct electronic intelligence and to supply guerrilla training camps in Baja California and Culiacan. Her crew included 28 N Korean and 7 Mexican agents.
In May 1983, another N Korean shrimp boat installed electronic intelligence devices, including radio transceivers powerful enough to reach N Korea, on the island of San Ildefonso in the Gulf of California. Several months later, N Korea removed the devices suspecting their discovery by the CIA.