Today South Korea's President Kim Dae-jung becomes the first Western leader to meet face-toface with the world's most reclusive leader, President Kim Jong-Il of North Korea.
In preparation for the historic encounter, President Kim has been reinventing his northern counterpart, who for years has been depicted by politicians in Seoul as an unstable playboy who masterminded the bombing of a South Korean passenger aircraft in 1988. In an echo of Margaret Thatcher's famous remark about being able to "do business" with Mr Mikhail Gorbachev, Mr Kim said recently that he believed Kim Jong-Il to be a "pragmatic leader with good judgment".
The former view of Mr Kim in South Korea was encapsulated in a 1993 biography published by the Institute for South-North Korea Studies. This accused him of bizarre practices such as "getting blood transfusions from young virgins".
Based on the evidence of defectors, it says he was born on February 15th, 1942, in a Russian village near Khabarovsk, while his father, Kim Il Sung, was a guerrilla fighting the Japanese. As a child he had the Russian name of Yura. After the Japanese retreat when Kim Il Sung became leader of North Korea, he began grooming his son for the top, sending him to college in Eastern Germany.
The young pretender married a student, Hong Il-chun, then divorced her and took a typist, Kim Yong-suk, as his second wife, and mother of his son and two daughters. The book goes on to claim that he had eight illegitimate children, including one by a 19-yearold film star. In 1978 Kim allegedly had two film producers, Shin Sand-ok and Chui Eun-huis, kidnapped from South Korea to make documentaries in the North.
When they later "defected" back to the South they described late-night parties during which Kim Jong-Il danced the foxtrot and played blackjack and backgammon. He is said to be a film buff, with a collection of 15,000 movies, including Hollywood blockbusters. Little of the above is verifiable, as Western journalists and would-be biographers are generally banned from North Korea.
The official view of Kim in North Korea is rather different. He was born, not in Russia, but on the sacred Korean mountain of Paekdu, under a star representing Juche (self-reliance) "brightly illuminating the path before our nation", according to Radio Pyongyang on August 8th, 1982.
At 31 he was elected a secretary of the ruling Workers' Party and afterwards became known as the "Dear Leader", and the "Great Successor" to his father the "Great Leader".
Many North Korean books have been published extolling his virtues, including one translated into English, The Great Teacher of Journalists. This gives an insight into how the cult of personality was created around him. It details the "on-the-spot guidance" Kim Jong-Il gave over the years to reporters, broadcasters and photographers, who were invariably left choking with emotion and gratitude.
On one occasion, witnessing a bad video-recording of a theatre performance "the Dear Leader acquainted himself with various technical problems before he said that the feeble lighting seemed to be the cause". Bright lights were provided, and "the hearts of the broadcast workers were throbbing with great excitement" at his profound advice.
On another occasion he "greatly moved" the journalists of the Party newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, when he gave on-the-spot guidance on writing articles, which "should unfailingly hold the President in high esteem, adore him and praise him as the great revolutionary leader".
The Korea Central News Agency said that Kim also gave "on-the-spot guidance" to army officers, showing them how to shoot pistols with both hands. He wrote poetry and operas and dabbled in science.
All of this is equally suspect. What we do know, however, is that Kim Jong-Il was named supreme military commander in 1991 and Communist Party secretary in October 1998, both titles held by his father.