In this moment, we must not forget about our compatriots who are living under North Korean Communist rule. After Korea's liberation from Japan, I went to North Korea and conducted evangelical work. For this reason, I was branded a reactionary and was placed in a concentration camp, where I lived a life that was more painful that death itself. So I know that our compatriots in North Korea enjoy less freedom and endure more difficulties in their lives than do the prisoners in American jails. In comparison with life in North Korea, you can say that American jails are like relaxation centers. (May 1, 1988)

In North Korea, people's aspiration is to have enough food to fill their belly everyday. They canOt just eat something anytime they feel like it, as we do here. They are constantly trying to find a way that they can, just once, eat enough to fill their belly. TheyOre not worried about clothing. Does a hungry person worry about what he is going to wear? TheyOre not worried about what shoes they will wear, or about what kind of house they will live in. If only they could have enough to eat, they would be completely satisfied.

The authorities create this kind of situation, and then they turn around and devote all the country's resources toward preparing a military invasion of the South. I'm sure they have paved the roads leading up to the Military Demarcation Line near the 38th parallel very well. I saw something like this when I was coming out of Hung Nam Prison in the 1950s. We have a strong interest in things like that, you know. I saw then that the North Koreans had built their bridges in such a way that the road could be expanded easily. They had built two-lane bridges on roads that had just one lane, so that the road could easily be expanded to create a highway. That's how they prepared their military transportation routes. At that time, North Korea was a large producer of cement, so they built their roads with a thick layer of concrete. I was curious, so I dug down a little. I discovered that the road had been built strong enough to withstand the weight of 30-ton tanks.

I was very impressed to see this when I was coming out of North Korea in the 50s. All the bridges had been built so that tanks weighing 30 tons could pass by without damaging the road surface. The road coming out of Hung Nam went along the East Sea coastline, and this made a potentially important truck route. They had prepared from early on to make this a military transportation route. When I saw this, I realized that this road had been a part of a plan to invade the South. Even as they were creating their governmental structure, they had made these preparations in line with the Soviet Union's Far East policy and with the support and instruction of the KGB.

For this reason, all the fertilizer that was produced in Hung Nam was taken to the Soviet Union. They exchanged fertilizer for weapons. For the Soviet Union, these weapons were ten or twenty years out of date. But the North Koreans exchanged for as many as they could get because the weapons were cheap. Then they deployed these along the 38th parallel, and used them to train their forces for an invasion of the South. You see, they had no need for advanced military hardware. So that's why they worked to heavily arm their forces at a low cost. Fertilizer was the product that they used to acquire these arms. That's why all the fertilizer that was produced in the Hung Nam fertilizer factory was shipped to the Soviet Union. Several trainloads were sent off every day. There, the fertilizer was all exchanged for weapons that were then brought back and deployed along the 38th parallel. I was aware of all this back then.

They did all this already back in the 50s. I remember when I was going from Hung Nam to Pyongyang, I saw that because they didnOt have asphalt they had used concrete instead to build the bridges and that they built them so the roads could be expanded on short notice. (163-186)

North Korea produced a lot of cement, and they used this to prepare their military roads. So, it goes without saying that theyOve done extensive preparations now between Pyongyang and Sineuiju on the border with China. How many years has it been now since the armistice? There's nothing that they could not have accomplished by now. They even dug those tunnels. We don't even know how many tunnels there are, do we? (163-189)

When North Korea was fighting against the United States before the armistice, we would attack them from here with aircraft. North Korea, though, didnOt have any aircraft. So, how could they transport artillery shells to the front line? They couldnOt just load them onto trucks and transport them down the highway in broad daylight. Trucks were useless, because they would be attacked from the air. So, they transported their supplies during the night. How did they do this at night? All the people along the transport route were organized into teams. Each team was responsible for hauling supplies from one particular point to another. This way, supplies were transported from hamlet to hamlet. Every night, as soon as the sun went down, they would start carrying shells and bullets. They each had their assigned load, a certain standard that they had to meet. When night fell, they would pick up the supplies and start moving them in the direction of the front line.

The South kept looking for the North to run short on artillery shells, but that never happened. For them, there was no difference between people in the rear and those near the front. They were all treated just like soldiers. North Korea had the concept that they would defeat the enemy not just with the power of their military but with the power of the entire country. For them, it was total war. That's the kind of strategy they have today. Just before the armistice was declared, North Korea fired off an astonishing number of shells. They fired so many that at night the flames from their artillery made you think the whole world was being reduced to rubble. The Americans fired a tremendous number of shells into the North. But no matter, the North continued to resist and refused to be defeated. How did they get all those shells to the front line? They didnOt just automatically arrive from the point of production. They were all transported through the team system.

Under this social and political system, they are solidly united around the goal to OliberateO the South. The one problem that they face is that the United States maintains a presence here in the South. We can be like this here today because the United States has troops stationed here. If not, we would have been OliberatedO a long time ago. Without the US presence, the armistice would never have lasted this long. Within three years, they would have tried again, and then again, and as many times as necessary. That's the game theyOre playing. (163-191)

After being freed, I came to the South in 1950; so they staged their invasion just three years after creating a government. You have to realize this. They established a government in 1948. Then, they needed less than three years to prepare their invasion of the South that began on June 25, 1950. Do you understand what that means? That means that it took them less than three years to finish the job of developing highly mobile military units. They organized their forces and then pushed the South all the way back almost to Pusan. In order to accomplish this, they trained themselves centering not only on strategic training but also centering on their deployment infrastructure.

Let's look at North Korea's military preparations. How many do they have in their active duty force? [800,000] How many in the Worker-Farmer Red Guard Brigade? [2.5 million] Then, how many in the University Students Brigade? And after that there are the middle and high school students who form the young peoplesO defense force, that is, the OPersonal Guard." How many are they? [They come to millions] You have to know that they are in the millions. Groups like the Worker-Farmer Red Guard Brigade are always training in their collective farms. You must not underestimate what would happen if these people were to change into a different set of clothes and start marching toward South Korea. Never underestimate them. (January 21, 1988)

This is what I'm grateful for. The purpose for my going to prison in North Korea was so that I could learn all this. Those rascals! When I was a student, I used to have arguments over ideology with friends who had studied Communist ideology. I fight now, because I know we don't stand a chance the way we are now. I know about Communism in great detail. The most onerous of all the systems organized by the Communist Party are the ones they have in their jails. (163-197)