Washington refused. The Jangs may be able to help the CIA distinguish truth from fiction in hundreds of rumors about illicit money, sex and smuggling inside the world’s last Stalinist regime. They were confidants of Kim, who runs his faltering communist regime more like a royal court. Jang’s wife is Choi Hae Ok, former leading lady of a Pyongyang theater company founded by Kim himself. Choi was a favorite of the Great Leader and reportedly a member of the company’s ““pleasure group,’’ which gave private shows for Kim. While Choi entertained in the palace, Jang’s elder brother and fellow diplomat, Jang Sung Ho, ran a Paris branch of the shadowy Pyongyang enterprise called ““Room 39,’’ a trading outfit that reputedly funnels foreign exchange into Kim’s personal treasury. Like his brother, Jang Sung Ho vanished last week with his family into the custody of the CIA. Together, the Jangs are believed to be the first North Koreans to defect to the United States instead of to South Korea since the Korean War.
In fact, the CIA may have been courting the Jangs for a long time. According to U.S. intelligence officials, the CIA stepped up its efforts to recruit North Korean diplomats about two years ago–when concerns about Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear weapons programs were at a peak. Jang Sung Gil was a rising diplomatic star, and an obvious target. The CIA station in Egypt is one of the agency’s largest in the world, and Cairo offers its operatives a freewheeling bazaar in which to shop for assets. While it’s not clear when the agents landed Jang, it was well before his defection, NEWSWEEK’S sources say. They also say the CIA made the decision to pull Jang out of Cairo–perhaps after learning that Pyongyang was going to summon him home in September for embarrassing the regime. Due to financial trouble at home, North Korean diplomats must fund their own missions, and Jang was recently accused of smuggling contraband watches.
As ambassador to Cairo, Jang was at the nerve center of Pyongyang’s Middle East diplomacy. He was also one of the few fluent Arabic speakers in the Pyongyang diplomatic corps and must have been privy to its secret weapons trade. Business peaked during the 1980s, when North Korea sold up to 400 missiles worth $6 billion in the Middle East. Hayes says the exports included copies of Scud missiles originally obtained from Egypt, and that Iran used up to 100 of the Pyongyang knockoffs in its 1988 ““war of the cities’’ against Iraq. Now, Hayes adds, Jang might be able to spell out the current scope of North Korea’s missile sales and name its customers. Jang may also know details of two missile factories North Korea has built in Syria and Iran, says Yiftah Shapir, a researcher at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. ““He could tell us what stage these factories are in.''
Pyongyang’s anger over the defections now threatens the Sept. 15 resumption of talks with the United States, China and South Korea on drafting a formal peace treaty to end the Korean War. With its economy shrinking and famine spreading, North Korea’s faltering regime is starting to hemorrhage high-level defectors. The exodus began in February, when an ideologue known as the Lenin of North Korea defected to Seoul. Aidan Foster-Carter, director of the Leeds University Korea Project, predicts many more defections to come, thanks to the Great Leader. ““If the captain of your ship is useless–and he’s not about to steer the ship off the rocks–you might as well swim for your life.’’ Or dial up the CIA for help.
