[Lee Kyong-hee] North Korean nuclear arms: A long, tangled history

The night of July 7, 1994.

Three helicopters took off from Pyongyang, flying through a torrential downpour to Kim Il-sung’s villa in the Myohyang Mountains some 160 kilometers northeastward.

US military intelligence intercepted a terse message from the site: “The doctors are not here yet.” Later accounts claim that Kim felt sick with a sudden heart attack, doctors were dispatched, two helicopters crashed in the storm, and with no medical help arriving in time, the man who founded and ruled North ...