South Korea's Kim Can't Take His Eyes off the Prize

By Tim Larimer/Tokyo

During last summer's Camp David peace talks, South Korean diplomats in Seoul grilled counterparts from the Middle East, calling for hourly updates, buttonholing them at embassy receptions. Why did Seoul monitor negotiations so closely? "They were afraid the talks would be successful," says a diplomat, "and KIM DAE JUNG would lose the Nobel." Many observers feel the unstated motivation driving President Kim's push for detente between the Koreas is an obsession with winning the Peace Prize, which will be announced Friday. Kim's resume has "Nobel" stamped all over it. He was jailed by military dictatorships, and assassins once tried to run him down with a car. After being elected President in 1998, he embarked on a policy of engagement with his unpredictable neighbor, culminating with Kim and North Korea's KIM JONG IL shaking hands last June. But the President's critics think South Korea's Kim has given a lot--money, mostly--in exchange for very little: handshakes, Olympians walking side by side and too few meetings between aging relatives divided by the DMZ. There has been no progress in what people really want, military retrenchment. "I hope Kim Dae Jung wins this prize," said political scientist PAIK JIN HYUN, "so he will be liberated from this obsession."

--By Tim Larimer/Tokyo