{"id":278493,"date":"2025-04-10T04:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T04:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/10\/kim-shin-jo-a-failed-north-korean-assassin-dies-as-a-pastor-in-the-south\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T04:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T04:49:10","slug":"kim-shin-jo-a-failed-north-korean-assassin-dies-as-a-pastor-in-the-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/10\/kim-shin-jo-a-failed-north-korean-assassin-dies-as-a-pastor-in-the-south\/","title":{"rendered":"Kim Shin-jo, a Failed North Korean Assassin, Dies as a Pastor in the South"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/10\/multimedia\/10int-skorea-obit-jlfq\/10int-skorea-obit-jlfq-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Kim Shin-jo, a Failed North Korean Assassin, Dies as a Pastor in the South\" title=\"Kim Shin-jo, a Failed North Korean Assassin, Dies as a Pastor in the South\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Kim Shin-jo, the only captured member of a team of 31 North Korean commandos who came within striking distance of the South Korean presidential palace \u200bin central Seoul before they were repelled in 1968, died on Wednesday. He was 82.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kim\u2019s death \u200bat a nursing hospital was confirmed on Thursday by his Sungrak Church in Seoul, which cited old age as the cause.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In January 1968, Mr. Kim and his colleagues did the unimaginable \u2014 slipping undetected through the heavily \u200bfortified border between North and South Korea and trekking 40 miles into Seoul on a mission to assassinate Park Chung-hee, who was the military\u200b dictator of South Korea at the time\u200b, and his staff. They got within hundreds of yards of Mr. Park\u2019s presidential Blue House but were stopped by South Korean forces\u200b in a fierce gun battle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">All the North Korean assassins were gunned down or killed themselves except two. One of the two was believed to have \u200bmade it back to the North.\u200b The other was Mr. Kim\u200b, \u200bwho surrendered\u200b and later reinvented himself into a fiery anti-Communist lecturer and Christian pastor in the capitalist South.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe came to slit President Park Chung-hee\u2019s throat,\u201d <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=brnG16W5SmY&amp;t=126s\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">Mr. Kim said<\/a>\u200b shortly after his capture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The commandos\u2019 raid into the heart of Seoul on Jan. 21, 1968 \u2014 and <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/01\/23\/opinion\/pueblo-ship-vietnam-war.html\" title=\"\">North Korea\u2019s seizure<\/a> of the American reconnaissance ship USS Pueblo two days later \u2014 marked one of the \u200bpeaks of Cold War \u200btensions on the divided Korean Peninsula.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Stung by the attack, Mr. Park\u2019s government secretly trained its own assassins to exact revenge against \u200bthe North\u2019s then leader Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the current leader Kim Jong-un. (The unit was disbanded after the <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/archives\/la-xpm-2003-dec-26-et-choe26-story.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">South Korean commandos mutinied<\/a> in 1971.) \u200bSouth Korea also \u200bcreated a reservist\u200b army and introduced <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1OW2SuU_2es&amp;t=230s\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">military training<\/a> at \u200bhigh schools and universities. The 13-digit residential ID card\u200b, introduced \u200bat the time to \u200bhelp guard against North Korean spies, remains mandatory\u200b to this day for all South Koreans aged 17 or older.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Part of the mountain route behind the Blue House that \u200bMr. Kim\u2019s raiding party used \u200bto infiltrate the South Korean capital remained closed to the public\u200b for security reasons until a few years ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIf our mission had succeeded, South Koreans would be living under Communism now,\u201d Mr. Kim said in an interview in 2008.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Korea was \u200bdivided into the pro-Soviet North and pro-American South at the end of World War II. Their three-year Korean War \u200bwas halted in a truce in 1953, leaving \u200bthem technically at war ever since. \u200bIn the ensuing decades, both sides\u200b waged a clandestine war, with <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/04\/09\/world\/asia\/forgotten-soldiers-of-a-clandestine-war.html\" title=\"\">thousands of commandos and spies<\/a> <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/04\/09\/world\/asia\/forgotten-soldiers-of-a-clandestine-war.html\" title=\"\">infiltrat\u200bing<\/a> each other\u2019s territory\u200b. Mr. Kim\u2019s \u200bfallen comrades remain buried in an \u201c<a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/03\/20\/world\/asia\/20iht-cemetery.1.11282786.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare\" title=\"\">enemy cemetery<\/a>\u201d north of Seoul, unclaimed by \u200btheir government\u200b, which officially denies both their mission and existence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Back in 1968, Mr. Kim\u2019s team breached a section of the western inter-Korean border guarded by \u200bAmerican troops. As they were hurrying through the hills toward Seoul, the North Koreans encountered four South Korean brothers collecting firewood. After much debate, they let the South Koreans live, warning them not to contact the police. That was their fatal mistake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The villagers alerted the police, and by the time the would-be assassins reached Seoul, the police were waiting.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">A ferocious gun battle broke out around <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/05\/03\/travel\/a-great-view-of-seoul-if-you-follow-the-rules.html\" title=\"\">Bukaksan<\/a>, a craggy hill behind the Blue House, which was the seat of the South Korean presidency until former President Yoon Suk Yeol relocated his office to another government building in 2022. The fighting and manhunt continued for two weeks as the North Korean raiding party scattered and retreated northward. \u200bMore than 30 South Koreans were killed, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kim was hiding in an abandoned hut, surrounded by South Korean troops and ready to kill himself with a grenade. He \u200bchanged his mind and surrendered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI was single, a young man. I wanted to save myself,\u201d he said <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/12\/18\/world\/asia\/18seoul.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&amp;referringSource=articleShare\" title=\"\">in an interview in 2010.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">North Korean spies caught in the South often <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/03\/09\/world\/asia\/korean-brothers-as-different-as-north-and-south.html\" title=\"\">spent decades<\/a> in solitary confinement in South Korean prisons. Some of them refused to disown their Communist ideology, in part because doing so would jeopardize their families in the North. But after two years of interrogation, Mr. Kim was pardoned. He successfully argued that he didn\u2019t kill any South Korean\u200bs, and also disowned Communism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">South Korea saw propaganda value in converts like Mr. Kim. Soon after his release, he traveled across South Korea with counterintelligence officials, giving lectures at military \u200bunits, churches and workplaces in which he railed against the North Korean government. He said that defectors from his North Korean hometown, Chongjin, told him that his parents were executed and his brothers had disappeared.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIn North Korea, my dead colleagues are heroes, and I am a traitor,\u201d he said during the 2008 interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Kim was survived by his wife, Choi Jeong-hwa, whom he met in South Korea and who turned him to Christianity. Mr. Kim was ordained as a pastor in 1997.\u200b He was also survived by a son and a daughter.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/04\/10\/world\/asia\/kim-shin-jo-dead.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kim Shin-jo, the only captured member of a team of 31 North Korean commandos who came within striking distance of the South Korean presidential palace \u200bin central Seoul before they were repelled in 1968, died on Wednesday. He was 82. Mr. Kim\u2019s death \u200bat a nursing hospital was confirmed on Thursday by his Sungrak Church [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/10\/multimedia\/10int-skorea-obit-jlfq\/10int-skorea-obit-jlfq-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52981,191275,163460,188456,16,14637,34108,215288,1517,1358,52859,215287,160616,215289,6967,1512],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278493"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278495,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278493\/revisions\/278495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}