Report, Embassy of Hungary in North Korea to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, 23 January 1968

     On 22 December 1967 Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Jae-bong [Kim Jae Bong] sent for Czechoslovak Ambassador Golub. According to the information received from the Czechoslovak embassy, the deputy foreign minister, who sometimes gave a sharp tone, made the following comments while talking to the ambassador:

    […]

    Early this year [1967] the Korean side asked the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry and the representatives of the Czechoslovak press not to report the aspersions published in the Chinese Red Guard press, which had attacked Comrade Kim Il Sung. […] Following this, however, the Czechoslovak journalists did write about the Chinese attacks… […]   

    It is known to the peoples of the world that Comrade Kim Il Sung, having been at the head of the anti-Japanese partisan troops, waged an armed struggle until victory. The Czechoslovak press writes that „Comrade Kim Il Sung is one of the leaders of the anti-Japanese partisan struggles.” This is a falsification!

    When Pravda, the paper of the Communist Party of Slovakia, published a conversation that the [North Korean] chargé d’affaires ad interim to Prague had had with a journalist of that paper, it omitted the important epithets belonging to the name of our leader. Thus the paper committed a serious error. If the Czechoslovak press did not write about our „respected” and „beloved” leader, the deputy minister said, the article or news in question would lose its importance. The Korean side cannot comprehend why the Czechoslovak press omits these important and essential epithets and why it fails to write respectfully about Comrade Kim Il Sung.

    The Korean side demands that in the future the Czechoslovak side put its house in order with regard to the development of the relations between the two countries, and nothing like the aforesaid events should occur in the future!

    […] The Czechoslovak press falsifies and distorts the policy of the DPRK. For instance, in the fall of 1967 the economic weekly published by the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak party reported that Comrade Kim Il Sung had paid an incognito visit toMoscow [emphasis in the original]! […] The deputy minister stated that „the successes of Comrade Kim Il Sung are known all the world over, it is only the Czechoslovaks who evaluate the [North Korean] situation in a negative way! Comrade Kim Il Sung is the guarantee of all our successes!”

    […]

                                                                                                                          István Kádas

                                                                                                                          (ambassador)