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North Korea's Kim Jong Il Chooses Youngest Son as Heir
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Snow-covered Mount Paektu is the highest peak on the Korean Peninsula and a revered place. North Korea claims that Kim Il Sung organized guerrillas to fight Japanese occupation from bases on the mountain and that Kim Jong Il was born there. But records show that the communist resistance and the Dear Leader were born in what was then the Soviet Union.
It has been state policy in North Korea since the 1950s to create cults of personality around the Kim family. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were ascribed godlike powers and unlimited knowledge. The practice has been supported by relentless propaganda that dominates school curriculums and by strict government control over access to foreign media or any outside information.
Kim Jong Un is the second son of Kim Jong Il's third wife, Ko Yong Hi, who died five years ago of breast cancer at age 51. At 26, he is seven years younger than his father was when he was designated as the future leader. Kim Jong Il got the nod in 1974, two decades before the death of his father.
Analysts had expected Kim Jong Il to name a successor in 2012, the centenary of the birth of his father. But his health appears to be failing. In recent video clips he has looked gaunt, tired and much older than his 67 years.
He has two other sons. But the eldest, Jong Nam, 38, lost favor in 2001 when he was caught trying to enter Japan on a phony passport. He told Japanese officials he wanted to visit Disneyland in Tokyo.
The middle son, Jong Chol, 28, was regarded by his father as unfit for leadership and too feminine, according to Kenji Fujimoto, a former Japanese sushi chef for the North Korean leader and author of the memoir "I was Kim Jong Il's Cook."
Special correspondents Stella Kim in Seoul and Akiko Yamamoto in Tokyo contributed to this report.
