An Ex-North Korean Spy Talks About His Past

Kim Shin-jo was part of a North Korean unit that tried to assassinate the president in 1968. Now he is a South Korean Protestant minister. (John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times / July 17, 2010)

The Face Of South Korea's Boogeyman -- L.A. Times

'I came down to cut Park Chung-hee's throat,' the captured would-be North Korean assassin told the nation 40 years ago. Now he finds solace in his faith and hopes to help the South put that image to rest.

He looks more like a graying clergyman than the boogeyman of thousands of South Korean childhoods.

But Kim Shin-jo is both.

The 69-year-old may preside over a Protestant church in this picturesque community where the Han River bends among mountain peaks. But he is also the reluctant grandfather of North Korean spies, a reminder of a cloak-and-dagger world that refuses to be dispatched to the history books on this divided peninsula.

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My Comment: He may be 40 years out of date with what is happening in North Korea, but he understands the mindset and the political culture that still pervades all of North Korea, and the need for the South to understand what are the conditions in the North. Decades after the attempt on the life of the South Korean President .... I guess he has found some form of redemption.