My Meeting with President 
Kim Il Sung

       I had not gone to North Korea because I wanted to see my hometown, or because I wanted to tour Mount Kumgang. I wanted to meet President Kim Il Sung and have a serious discussion on the future of our homeland. Yet, six days into my visit, there was no word on whether a meeting with President Kim could be arranged. When we arrived back at Pyongyang’s Sunan Airport by helicopter after visiting my hometown, however, I found that Vice Premier Kim Dal Hyun had unexpectedly come to meet me.

       “The Great Leader Kim Il Sung will receive you tomorrow,” he told me. “the place will be the Majeon Presidential Residence in Heungnam, so you will need to board a special flight immediately, and go to Heungnam.”

       I thought to myself, “They say he has many presidential residences. Why, of all places, Heungnam?”

       On my way, I noticed a large sign for the Heungnam Nitrogen Fertilizer Factory, where I had been forced to labor. It reminded me of my time in prison and gave me an odd feeling. I spent the night in a guesthouse and went the next day to meet the president.

       As I approached the official residence, I found President Kim at the entrance, waiting to greet me. The two of us simultaneously embraced each other. I was an anti-communist and he was the leader of a communist party, but ideology and philosophies were not important in the context of our meeting. We were like brothers who were meeting for the first time after a long separation. This was the power of belonging to the same people and sharing the same blood.

       Right at the outset, I said to him: “Mr. President, because of your warm consideration, I have been able to meet my family. There are, however, 10 million Koreans who are members of families separated between North and South, and they are unable even to know whether their relatives on the other side are alive or dead. I would like to ask you to grant them the opportunity to meet each other.”