Kim Yong-sun

Kim was born in 1934 in South Pyongan, when the Korean Peninsula was still under Japanese rule.[1][3] He was elevated to the WPK's Central Committee in October 1980.[4] He was a recipient of the Kim Il-sung Order, the highest decoration of the North Korean government.[1]

According to author Bradley K. Martin, Kim was interned in a 're-education camp' for three years from 1979 because he had an affair with a female colleague.[5] According to author Don Oberdorfer, he was flamboyant and was demoted in the mid-1980s for decadent behavior. However, his career was saved because of his friendship with Kim Jong-il and his sister Kim Kyong-hui.[6] In 1992, he visited New York City to prepare for North Korea's accession to the United Nations and held the highest-level US-DPRK diplomatic meetings to that time with Arnold Kanter, Richard Solomon, Douglas Paal, and James Lilley of the U.S. State Department.[7]

Kim played an instrumental role in the planning of the first Inter-Korean summit between Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il in June 2000.[1] He came to the South in September that year as part of an official Northern delegation, and inspected POSCO facilities in Pohang; he was the first secretary of the WPK to take an inspection tour in the South since Ho Dam in 1985.[2] After reportedly being involved in a car accident in June 2003, he was hospitalised, and succumbed to his injuries on 23 October 2003.[1]