Prospect of Korean summit under President Kim blurs

By Edward Neilan

Years in prison stirred study, introspection that may help in dealing with North and economy.

TOKYO (JP): Studying the inner man of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung bolsters confidence that he is well-equipped intellectually to lead a challenged nation to rejuvenation of its morale and toward economic recovery.

With a little bit of the luck and propitious timing that every successful leader must have, Kim could see his bouquet of olive branch proposals made to North Korea last weekend bear some fruit.

Kim proposed establishing a "standing dialogue mechanism" as a channel for high-level talks with North Korea. He said he would send a personal envoy to Pyongyang -- if the North agrees -- to discuss all inter-Korean issues.

The South Korean government is willing to help the North achieve stability in the spirit of reconciliation and cooperation, he added.

Even as President Kim was making the gesture, North Korea was accused by the United States of secretly reviving its nuclear program.

The likelihood of a summit between Kim Dae-jung and the North's top man Kim Jong-il is not good. But the son of the late Great Leader Kim Il-sung, still waiting to be officially anointed in Pyongyang, should know that his chances of meaningful dialogue are better with South Korea's current president than with any successor now on the horizon.

North Korea still seems confused on how to regard Kim Dae- jung. During his past as a dissident, he was lauded by Pyongyang. Since becoming president, he has been spared the harsh invective North has reserved for the country's past military leaders.

The window of opportunity may soon close. Under their political deal, the South's president is to give effective power through a switch to a parliamentary system at mid-term to Prime Minister Kim Jong-pil.

The former military officer was approved for that office by a 171-65 vote only on Aug. 17, six months after President Kim made the nomination.

Textbook Korean factionalism was responsible for the delay, which left the parliament at a standstill while the country was facing a crushing economic crisis.

I reached for the copy of Prison Writings on my bookshelf to refresh and verify the qualities of the inner man of Kim Dae- jung.

He had given me an autographed copy of the book, published by the University of California Press, soon after it appeared in 1987. The inscription was Sept.l7, 1987, the day he had invited me to his home for an interview-lunch. The unusual arrangement was because Kim was under house arrest. I had to pass through an armed guard cordon, with officials checking my credentials, in order to get to the dining room for a greeting by Kim and his wife.

Kim's letters from prison were published first in Japan where his kidnapping in 1973 had made him a celebrated figure. Under the title Embracing the Yearnings of my People they were then published in South Korea and sold in the thousands to Koreans there and abroad.

It is a political and literary phenomenon that some great leaders have their philosophies deepened and broadened while in prison. Political incarceration has led to sensitive introspection in such men as Ho Chi Minh and Nelson Mandela.

Kim's intellectual approach to books read in prison was far from passive. In his book he takes on and argues pro and con the best points of Plato, Aristotle, Confucius, Rousseau, Nietzsche, John Kenneth Galbraith, Erich Fromm, Syngman Rhee, Jawaharlal Nehru, Arnold Toynbee, Feodor M. Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Mao Zedong, Albert Camus and Shima Ryotaro, among others.

Those who are skeptical of Kim's grasp of economic fundamentals should read his chapters on Creativity and Productivity and Strengthening a Self-Sufficient Economic System.

Kim's Christian faith is impressive and shines through on nearly every page.

For those who believed Kim to be at least a crypto-communist:

"What we have to remember is that we should never imitate the methods of the Communist party while claiming to be fighting it."

"This is the century of the greatest changes in history," Kim wrote in the early 1980s from his jail cell, on a small aerogramme sheet. "Korea is the country undergoing the greatest change. In the middle of all this, one danger that confronts us is becoming a colonial culture and the other is the danger of becoming a nationalistic culture. The culture that we have built is a culture that combines our nationalistic salience and universality."