The Sacramento Bee July 9, 2006
Rocket's red glare
Break it down
By David Letterman
Sometimes reading international news feels like you're starting in the middle of a movie. If you feel that way about developments in North Korea -- what is a Taepodong, anyway? -- here's a briefing on the essentials and a few, well, less-essentials.
King Jong: Who is the West tangling with? That would be Kim Jong Il. He is officially chairman of the National Defense Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. His father, Kim Il Sung, died in 1994 and has the "eternal" title of president. Like his nation, Kim Jong Il remains shrouded in mystery to the West. He reportedly was born in 1941 in Siberia, although official North Korean bios portray his birth as more of a mix of Abe Lincoln and the "Wizard of Oz": Born in 1942 in a log cabin -- seriously -- on Korea's Mount Paekdu, his birth greeted by a double rainbow and a new star.
Loose cannon: The Taepodong-2 is the big missile in question. Reports on the range of the two- to three-stage missile vary, with some pegging it at 9,320 miles. In case you're wondering, Sacramento is 5,587 miles from Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea. And the missile's name means "big cannon." Experts say building an intercontinental ballistic missile isn't easy -- making it accurate with the dreaded nuclear payload is tough and requires a lot of tests.
Loose canon: The ideology that guides North Korea is Juche, which means "self-reliance." Introduced by Kim Il Sung in 1955, it's described as "the independent stance of rejecting dependence on others and of using one's own powers, believing in one's own strength and displaying the revolutionary spirit of self-reliance."
Sources: Globalsecurity.org, Cornell University, BBC, Voice of America, mapcrow.info
THE LOWDOWN: North Korea sets off some fireworks of its own while Americans recover from the Fourth of July, firing seven test missiles Wednesday, including a long-range Taepodong-2. • The Taepodong-2 apparently fizzles, crashing into the ocean, but the launches ignite global concern. • President Bush, who once dubbed North Korea part of an "Axis of Evil," seeks a unified response from other world powers. North Korea says it won't back down.
SMART MOUTHS
"This is a little frightening. The White House says North Korea has missiles with the capability … of being launched in North Korea and landing on the West Coast of the United States. … I was thinking about this and was like, 'Oh hell, that's Leno's problem.' "
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