Journal of Soviet Ambassador in the DPRK A. M. Puzanov for 18 May 1958

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Copy Nº 1

USSR EMBASSY IN THE DPRK

Nº 112

30 May 1958

[faded stamp:

07238-gs

11 June 1958]

[MFA Far East

Department stamp:

Incoming Nº 01579

12 June 1958]

[handwriting: "To Cdes. [[two names illegible]]

Arrange with the Main Directorate of the

Civil Air Fleet about the crew for government aircraft]

JOURNAL

of Soviet Ambassador in the DPRK A. M. PUZANOV during the

period 13 May through 29 May 1958

[handwriting:

to Cde. Samsonov

for implementation.

N. Torbenkov]

Pyongyang

[…]

18 May 1958

I was at a lunch held by Kim Il Sung at a government dacha outside the city together with Counsellors V. I. Pelishenko, M. Ye. Kryukov, and N. M. Shesterikov, Military Attaché A. A. D'yakonov, and Trade Representative I. A. Gladkov and [our] wives.

Present from the Korean side were: Kim Il Sung, Choe Yong-geon, Pak Jeong-ae, Pak Geum-cheol, Nam Il, Kim Gwang-hyeop, Choe Cheol-hwn, Ri Dong-yong, and Kim Jeong-suk (Kim Il Sung's sister and Chief of Department of Student Youth of the Union of Democratic Youth CC, who graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Journalism).

The Korean friends were with [their] wives for the first time.

Kim Il Sung personally proposed a toast to our unbreakable friendship and also to each Soviet guest, and we in turn to the Korean friends present at the lunch. Kim Il Sung confidentially spoke well about several of the officials present:

Pak Jeong-ae - a very good official, but it is hard for her in personal life. She is alone and has no children. Her husband died in 1947. His health was undermined from spending several years in prisons under the Japanese.

Choe Cheol-hwn (chief of a directorate of the Cabinet of Ministers, a former Soviet Korean) - my right hand, quiet, efficient, a person devoted to the cause;

Ri Dong-yong - I respect him, a good, intelligent, restrained official;

Pak Geum-cheol - he was imprisoned for a long time under the Japanese, and his wife was a messenger with us - between comrades in the underground and a partisan detachment.

The meeting took place in a warm, cordial, and comradely atmosphere. Kim Il Sung spoke very sincerely about friendship with the Soviet Union, about the selfless aid of the Soviet Union to the DPRK, the great attention and concern of the CPSU: the CPSU CC leadership helps us daily and when necessary points out shortcomings in [our] work. My wife and I, said Kim Il Sung, would like to vacation in the Soviet Union this year but unfortunately it is impossible to do this since there is an upcoming trip to the PRC and Vietnam, and we also are preparing to receive a Party-government delegation of the Soviet Union. Consequently we will go to the Soviet Union for vacation only in 1959.

Kim Il Sung said, right now you and I have established simple, confidential, close relations, without protocol. Therefore when I was in a reception with Cde. N. S. Khrushchev I told him that with the arrival of your Ambassador A. M. Puzanov we have become, figuratively speaking, more cheerful and happier. Then Kim Il Sung that he favored, "meetings to be without ceremony in the future".

Kim Il Sung also shared impressions about the trip to the provinces of North Hamgyong and Ryanggang.

In conclusion on behalf of the Soviet comrades present I cordially thanked Kim Il Sung for the good comradely meeting.

We were at the dacha from 1300 to 2100.

[…]