GENERAL NAM IL
DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA 5 JUNE 1915 - 7 MARCH 1976
The head of the North Korean delegation at the 1951-53 peace negotiations between UN and communist forces, he was born Yakov Petrovich Nam in the Russian Far East. Nam was relocated to Uzbekistan with his family and thousands of others during a forced resettlement ordered by Stalin in 1937.
An ethnic Korean, he worked as a teacher from 1941-43, but some accounts claim he fought against the Nazis with the Red Army. Selected by the Soviets to accompany Kim Il-sung to Pyongyang, he worked in the North’s Education Ministry after 1948 and was promoted to the Central Committee of the Worker’s Party within two years. Soon after the Korean War he became Kim’s foreign minister and was effectively vice premier during the 1960s. He was recorded as having perished in a traffic accident in 1976 and accorded a lavish funeral, although rumours persist that he was actually the victim of a purge.
“AN ETHNIC KOREAN, HE WORKED AS A TEACHER FROM 1941-3, BUT SOME ACCOUNTS CLAIM HE FOUGHT AGAINST THE NAZIS WITH THE RED ARMY”