In Seoul, a former North Korean commando, Kim Shin-jo, passed away on Wednesday at 82. After his failed attempt to assassinate South Korean President Park Chung-hee in 1968, Kim Shin-jo resettled in South Korea, becoming a pastor. His church, Sungrak Church in Seoul, announced that Kim died of old age and that a funeral would be held on Saturday, leaving behind his wife and two children, a son and a daughter.
Kim Shin-jo was part of a 31-member North Korean team tasked with attacking the South Korean presidential palace to kill Park, who governed South Korea under authoritarian rule since 1961. The commandos infiltrated the heavily fortified border, nearly reaching their target before intense battles with South Korean forces ensued in the surrounding hills, resulting in the deaths of all but three operatives. Kim was the only one captured, while the two others reportedly returned to North Korea.
Captured and presented in a South Korean news conference, Kim shocked the public by declaring that he and his team intended “to slit the throat of Park Chung-hee.” This incident, which resulted in around 30 South Korean casualties, occurred during the tense Cold War era, with the Korean Peninsula split between the US-supported South and Soviet-backed North. Subsequently, under Park’s administration, South Korea introduced several militaristic policies, including reservist forces, military training in schools, and residential registration card systems. A specialized military unit was also established with a focus on North Korea.
Kim explained in media interviews that he was spared execution because he hadn’t discharged his weapon during the operations and was convinced by South Korean officials to renounce communism. Following his pardon, he traveled throughout South Korea delivering speeches against the North Korean regime in schools, businesses, and other venues. However, Kim later learned that his parents in North Korea had been executed. He was ordained as a pastor in 1997.
Kim recounted that the 1968 mission was under the orders of Kim Il Sung, North Korea’s founding leader and grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong Un. The late Kim Il Sung passed away in 1994, succeeded by his son Kim Jong Il, who later died in 2011. Reflecting on the motivations for the attack, Kim Shin-jo shared in a 2009 interview that he eventually understood that Kim Il Sung likely feared South Korea’s economic rise, which could enable it to purchase more military equipment, thereby undermining the North’s goals of communizing the South.
In a 2007 autobiography, Park Geun-hye, Park Chung-hee’s daughter, mentioned that during a meeting with Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, he admitted that the 1968 operation was the work of “extremists” and apologized for the events. Park Geun-hye claimed that Kim Jong Il stated those involved had faced “due punishments.” However, these remarks from Kim Jong Il couldn’t be independently corroborated before his death due to a heart attack in late 2011.