One day in 1968, when the evaluation meetings over the May 25 Instruction were almost complete, I encountered the Vice Director of the Guidance Department of the Central Committee while I was sweeping the front yard of our apartment complex. He told me the following.
“Party officials have been saying that all the people in the Secretary’s Office getting kicked out might be bad for the leader’s reputation. The idea that we should reconsider President Hwang’s mistake is circulating. Wait for a while and there may be good news for you.”
Not long after that, I received a phone call from Kim Il Sung late at night. I listened nervously to him.
“Comrade, you have worked with me for a long time, and I thought you had a revolutionary viewpoint on the world. Therefore, I gave you a chance to work independently by appointing you university president. However, it seems that you didn’t harbor the correct viewpoint on the world. How come you wrote that useless thesis and raised such a scandal in society?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
It was all I could say. Thereafter, he asked me a few more questions before adding, “You’re sorry? Now that you know it, it’s fine. I’m planning to rehire those comrades who used to work in the Secretary’s Office. And since you have no relationship whatsoever with the matter of your father-in-law, tell Comrade Park Seung Ok (my wife) to get ready to go back to work.”
From then on, Kim Il Sung made a point of calling me whenever he had a speech to deliver. He asked my opinion about the speech even if he had to call late at night. I couldn’t avoid feeling moved. I felt that assisting him faithfully would be the only way to survive.
On the evening of December 31st, 1968, I received an urgent message from Kim Jong Il telling me to go to the villa in Munsu-ri. I got the message while I was looking around the students’ cafeteria; a guidance officer in the University Party Committee ran up and delivered it. My body ached with fatigue; I had a cold-sore in my mouth, and was wearing shabby clothes, too. I hurried to the villa, however, because I had no time.
Kim Jong Il was waiting at the door, “Welcome, President. Our Su-ryeong is waiting for you with the other cadres.”
I followed him into the room where Kim Il Sung was waiting. It was the first time I had faced him since the thesis incident.
Kim Il Sung welcomed me with a big smile. Choi Yong Geon and Kim Il welcomed me too. The banquet held that day was a New Year’s banquet, and I was not originally invited. However, I was told that Kim Il Sung had issued a sudden order to invite me.
I do not know who persuaded Kim Il Sung to forgive me.
Four people worked in the Secretary’s Office, including me. I was reinstated by the University, and another one who had been fired as Director of the Education Department came back to his position, too, while the Chief Secretary of the office, who had been exiled to a rural area, also got his job back. The last position in the office was allocated to the Social Sciences Academy, but by that time the incumbent had died. From then, the Secretary’s Office became the Secretary’s Department and a large number of people began working in it.
In early October, 1970, I applied for time with Kim Il Sung to report my achievements and the lessons that I had learned from the process of reconstructing the ideology. Kim Il Sung allowed me to meet him on the morning of October 20th. It was a Sunday. I told him that I’d been trying to reconstruct my ideology for the last three years, that I realized errors of Marxism, and firmly understood the philosophical essence of Kim Il Sung’s “Juche Idea”.
I knew that Kim Il Sung supported the idea of class struggle and proletariat dictatorship, so I didn’t mention anything about that. Instead, I pointed out that Marxism only emphasized objective principles but failed to evaluate fairly the role of human beings. I told him I wanted to form the Juche idea into a philosophy.
He was very satisfied with my suggestion, and said, “OK, from now on, try to study up on the Juche philosophy while nominally still the president of the university. However, put it aside for now, and let’s go and look around the university.”
We talked about the development of university education as we looked around the second school building.
A month later, my statement at the 5th Party Congress drew Kim Il Sung’s attention. After it, Kim gave a speech praising me very highly for almost an hour. He said that my mistake was only theoretical and that I had showed myself as a role model for other people by trying hard to correct my mistake. This was a very exceptional case, he said. In an election at the congress, I was promoted from candidate member to full member of the Central Committee of the Party.
In early 1971, I went to Dalcheon resort area, South Hwanghae Province with two assistants. There was a hot spring there. One of the assistants was an expert in economics who had studied in Russia. He was a manager in the Secretary’s Office at first, but had been promoted to vice head when we were kicked out. The other one was Kim Yong Won, brother-in-law of Yang Hyeong Seop, who was the Director of the Propaganda Department. He was Kim Il Sung’s cousin on his father’s side.
I was the adviser to him and his wife. I brought them with me for because they all had a good heart and liked me. I also didn’t lose sight of the fact that in order to ease my conflict with Kim Il Sung’s cousins, having one of them in my affairs was necessary. I was not good at editing my sentences smoothly, so I also needed people who could help with that.
